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Ernest Hemingway and the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Article Excerpt
Nominations for the Nobel Prize for Literature are kept classified for 50 years, which means that the documents nominating Hemingway, the 1954 winner, were opened in January 2005. Researcher Ove Swensson examined Hemingway's file at the Nobel Library of the Swedish Academy in Stockholm, and here reveals the contents of the nominating documents and of the Nobel Committee's discussion about the American writer.

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EACH YEAR THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE is awarded to the author who has produced "the most distinguished writing in an ideal direction." The word "ideal" has troubled the awarding members since the first Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded in 190l. What did Alfred Nobel really mean by the word? Nobody knows; perhaps the word "idealistic" would have been more appropriate. In 1954, Ernest Hemingway was awarded the Prize "for his mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea, and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style" (Nobel Citation).

That year the Swedish Academy consisted of eighteen members, with an average age of about 70. Within the Swedish Academy there is a Nobel Committee for Literature that reviews all of the candidates nominated during a given year. Committee members read and assess the work of finalists, and in the middle of October announce the winner. He or she receives the Prize on 10 December, the date that Alfred Nobel died.

Nominations for the Nobel Prize for Literature are kept classified for 50 years, which means that nominations for Hemingway, the 1954 winner, were opened in January 2005. Hemingway may have been nominated many times over the years. Because previous Nobel laureates flora all over the world as well as professors of literature, presidents of writers' organizations, and members of academies and other literary institutions may suggest candidates, I expected to see hundreds of nominations, but the sad...

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